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McLaren F1 Service Center Opens in North America

19 Dec 2017

McLaren Automotive is pleased to announce the opening of its North American McLaren F1 Service Center in Pennsylvania, United States. The new facility will offer maintenance and service on McLaren F1s located in North America, and is one of only two authorized service facilities outside of McLaren Special Operations (MSO) in Woking, United Kingdom.

Operated by McLaren Philadelphia, the facility is separate from the main McLaren Philadelphia retail facility, located at a remote site in Pennsylvania, set up to ensure customer discretion and privacy. The North American McLaren F1 Service Center was designed to replicate the services provided by MSO at its headquarters in Woking and the staff have been trained by MSO in-house technicians on the complete F1 service experience, ranging from basic annual maintenance to full system refreshes and even major renovations.

MSO has seen rapid growth as the McLaren heritage business expands, with MSO offering bespoke services for its heritage cars including the McLaren F1, SLR, McLaren P1™, and 650S. The new facility offers owners in North America a dedicated facility for their McLaren F1 vehicles to be serviced and the added convenience of no longer having to ship their cars to the U.K. for maintenance. While never officially imported to the United States by McLaren, it is believed that there are over 20 F1s in North America now.

The North American McLaren F1 Service Center in Pennsylvania holds one of the original sets of special tooling required to service the F1. An annual F1 service involves a meticulous level of inspection to the vehicle, including fluids, filters and wiper blade replacements and a full suspension inspection. The service requires a full “vehicle shakedown” on a closed test track or runway to compete high speed runs and assess the vehicle through its full performance envelope. Every second annual service requires a higher level of inspection and includes a brake service and flush, a more in-depth vehicle alignment, CV joint service, air-conditioning service and coolant service. Every five years the fuel tank must be replaced, which is an extensive process to complete and involves removing the powertrain from the vehicle.

“The key to servicing and maintaining a McLaren F1 correctly is allowing adequate time for the technician to meticulously check every nut and bolt—servicing an F1 is not a quick process,” said Tony Joseph, President, McLaren North America. “For North American owners, when you add up the time the actual service takes, with transport time to and from the U.K. – it equals a lot of time away from their vehicle. Having a service center in North America will allow us to drastically cut back on transport time and gives us an authorized facility that prioritizes North American F1s and owners.”

The McLaren F1 had a limited production run of only 106, making it one of the most exclusive cars in the world today. It took four years to meticulously plan, design and build the F1, which broke numerous world records during the 1990s. Featuring a 6.1-liter V12 delivering 620bhp, it remains the fastest naturally aspired road car ever built. The McLaren F1 was the first-ever road car with a carbon fiber chassis, and many of the F1’s most innovative technologies, such as the aforementioned carbon fiber tub, dihedral doors, flat underbody and airbrake are still signature features on McLaren vehicles sold today.

Another McLaren F1 Service Center on the West Coast in the United States will be announced in the future.

Ends

Notes to Editors:

A selection of high resolution images accompanying this release is available to download from the McLaren Automotive media site – cars.mclaren.press

About McLaren Automotive:

McLaren Automotive is a British manufacturer of luxury, high-performance sports and super cars, located at the McLaren Technology Centre (MTC) in Woking, Surrey. For the past 30 years, McLaren has pioneered the use of carbon fibre in vehicle production and since introducing a carbon chassis into racing and road cars with the 1981 McLaren MP4/1 and 1993 McLaren F1 respectively, McLaren has not built a car without a carbon fibre chassis.

Following the global launch of McLaren Automotive in 2010, the groundbreaking 12C was revealed in 2011, the 12C Spider in 2012, and the limited-run McLaren P1™ went into production in 2013. In keeping with its plan to introduce a new model each year, the company unveiled the 650S, in Coupé and Spider form in 2014, while 2015 proved to be a year of unprecedented growth of the product portfolio with five new models launched across the full range. The strictly limited edition 675LT Coupé premiered at the Geneva Motor Show alongside the track-only McLaren P1™ GTR which, with 1,000PS, became the most powerful model ever produced by the brand. The much-anticipated Sports Series became the third – and final – model tier in the McLaren range with the 570S Coupé and 540C Coupé debuting in New York and Shanghai respectively, less than one month apart. The end of 2015 saw the launch of the fifth model, the 675LT Spider, which was as a direct response to customer demand. The year also saw the end of production for the first model in the Ultimate Series as the 375th McLaren P1™ was completed, closing what had become a defining year for the British brand. 2016 continued where 2015 had left off with the introduction of the 570GT - a second bodystyle for the Sports Series and the most luxurious car McLaren has ever built, as well as the 570S GT4 and 570S Sprint track variants. 2016 also marked the introduction of the company’s new business plan, Track22, which sees the company investing £1B in Research and Development to deliver 15 all new cars or derivatives by the end of 2022, of which at least 50% will feature hybrid technology. The uplift in sales in 2016 also saw the launch of the second shift at the McLaren Production Centre as well as the company’s third year of profitability in just six years of trading. In March 2017, the second-generation Super Series was introduced at the Geneva Motor Show with the global premiere of the McLaren 720S. The first convertible model in the Sports Series, the 570S Spider, was revealed in June 2017 and made its public debut at the Goodwood Festival of Speed.

McLaren Automotive Partners To support the development, engineering and manufacture of its range of innovative and highly acclaimed sports cars, McLaren Automotive has partnered with world leading companies to provide specialist expertise and technology including, AkzoNobel, Kenwood, Pirelli, Richard Mille and SAP.